Feature WritingThe Art of Telling Stories

Mr. Jerico Dominguez IgnacioResource Speaker

What Are Feature Stories?

Feature stories are human-interest articles that focus on particular people, places and events.

Feature stories are journalistic, researched, descriptive, colorful, thoughtful, reflective, thorough writing about original ideas.

Feature stories cover topics in depth, going further than mere hard news coverage.

Feature stories are popular content elements of newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, newsletters, television broadcasts and other mass media.

• While journalists reporting late-breaking hard news don't have enough preparation time and copy length to include much background and description.

• Writers of features have the space and time to evoke imagery in their stories and fill in details of the circumstances and atmosphere.

• A feature story is not meant to report the latest breaking news, but rather an in-depth look at a subject.

• Features generally are longer than hard-news articles because the feature expands on the details rather than concentrate on a few important key points.

In hard news stories, often referred to as inverted pyramid style, the reporter makes the point, sets the tone, and frames the issue in the first paragraph or two.

In a feature story, on the other hand, the writer has the time and space to develop the theme, but sometimes postpones the main point until the end. The whole story does not have to be encapsulated in the lead.

Typical types • Human Interest: The best-known kind of

feature story is the human-interest story that discusses issues through the experiences of another.

• Profiles: A very common type of feature is the profile that reveals an individual's character and lifestyle. The profile exposes different facets of the subject so readers will feel they know the person.

• How-To: These articles help people learn by telling them how to do something. The writer learns about the topic through education, experience, research or interviews with experts.

• Historical Features: These features commemorate important dates in history or turning points in our social, political and cultural development. They offer a useful juxtaposition of then and now. Historical features take the reader back to revisit an event and issues surrounding it. A variation is the this date in history short feature, which reminds people of significant events on a particular date.

• Seasonal Themes: Stories about holidays and the change of seasons address matters at specific times of a year. For instance, they cover life milestones, social, political and cultural cycles, and business cycles.

Behind the Scenes: Inside views of unusual occupations, issues, and events give readers a feeling of penetrating the inner circle or being a mouse in a corner. Readers like feeling privy to unusual details and well kept secrets about procedures or activities they might not ordinarily be exposed to or allowed to participate in.

Here are some suggestions for polishing feature writing skills and developing

an eye for feature story ideas. • Feature stories give readers information

in a pleasing, entertaining format that highlights an issue by describing the people, places, events and ideas that shape it.

• Feature stories are really more like nonfiction short stories than hard news stories

• While there should a news peg for the existence of a story at a particular time, the immediacy of the event is secondary in a feature story. In fact, sometimes there is no immediate event.

• The power of a feature story lies in its ability to amplify the focus on an issue through first-rate story telling, irony, humor, human appeal, atmosphere and colorful details.

• Features have a clear beginning, middle and end and are longer than hard-news stories.

Gathering DataJournalists use three tools to gather

information for stories: 1.Observation, 2.Interview, 3.Background research.

Let’s start with Lead

• The opening sentence must grab and hold the reader's attention by using specific, interest-arousing words.

• The lead must catch the spirit of thestory and create the proper tone:serious, sarcastic, ironic, flippant, melancholy.

Lead• Can be and often is longer than one

sentence• Your chance to grab the reader’s

attention• Should be specific to your story• Should not be filled with cliches • Should be in third person• Must fit the mood or tone of the story

Literary allusion leadLiterary allusion leadExample:

To have been ordered into battle to attack a group of windmills with horse and lance would have seemed to Joe Robinson no more a strange assignment than the one given to him Thursday by Miss Vera Newton…

Historical allusion Historical allusion leadlead

Example:

Napoleon had his Waterloo. George Custer had his Little Big Horn. Fortunately, Napoleon and Custer faced defeat only once. For Bjorn Borg, the finals of the U.S. Tennis Open have become a stumbling block of titanic proportions.

Contrast leadContrast leadExample:

His wealth is estimated at $600 million. He controls a handful of corporations, operating in more than 20 nations. Yet he carries his lunch to work in a brown paper bag and wears the latest fashions from Sears and Roebuck’s bargain basement.

Pun leadPun leadExample:

Western High’s trash collectors have been down in the dumps lately.

Descriptive leadDescriptive leadExample:

The air inside the darkened gymnasium is heavy with the heat of an uncommonly prolonged North Carolina summer. Smoke from some tin containers placed around the basketball court lends a touch of mystery to the scene.

The thick smoke rolls into the intense light of floor-level arc lamps, then up against a raft of lights hovering like a Steven Spielberg spaceship. Out of the dark a white clad figure appears, bounding a basketball. Michael Jordan dives for the basket….

Example:The Beatles are back.

Example:

Awesome.

That’s the best way to describe the Rattler girls’ basketball team, which notched its 15th consecutive win Friday night.

Example:

Whisky, whisky everywhere, but ‘nary a drop to drink.

Such was the case at the City Police Station yesterday when officers poured 100 gallons of bootleg moonshine into the sewer.

Example:Do not expect any pity from the weatherman today. He forecasts a continuation of the bitter Arctic cold wave that has gripped this city for a week.

Example:Midnight on the bridge…a scream…a shot…a splash…a second shot…a third shot. This morning police recovered the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Murphy from the Snake River. A bullet wound was found in the temple of each.

Example:It was 1965 and the Dallas Cowboys were making good use out of an end-around play to Frank Clarke, averaging 17 yards every time a young coach named Tom Landry pulled it out of his expanding bag of tricks.

One day, Clint Murchison, owner of the Cowboys, wondered aloud in Landry’s presence how successful the play might be if Bob Hayes rather than Clarke ran with the ball. Hayes, after all, was the world’s fastest human.

“Tom gave a lot of mumbo-jumbo about weak and strong side and I nodded sagely and walked away,” Murchison told the Dallas Morning News.

A few weeks later, Landry called a reverse. Bob Hayes got the ball.

“We lost yardage,” Landry recalled. “And I haven’t heard from Clint since.”

Example:The Rio Grande once flowed through here, a wide and robust river surging between steep banks as it followed a southward course hugging the state’s curvy profile. No more.Four-plus years of drought in West Texas and the neighboring state of Chihuahua have turned the storied river into a trickle meandering through mud and gravel fields adorned here and there with discarded tires.

Sequence or Sequence or narrative leadnarrative lead

Example:Trainer Eddie Gregson was walking 10 feet behind his Kentucky Derby horse, Gato del Sol, when they emerged from the quiet of the stable area at Churchill Downs and began that long trek around the clubhouse turn toward the saddling paddock. There were 141,009 people packed into the Downs last Saturday afternoon-a warm, bright day in Louisville—and thousands lined the clubhouse turn, a few yelling at Gregson as the colt strode by. “What’s the name of your horse?” Less than one hour later, that nameless horse stood in the champion’s ring.

Example:You think you’ve had it bad? Consider Ron Mullens. Once vice president of a major real estate corporation, he is today penniless. Once married to a beautiful model, he now wanders the back roads of America alone, in search of a smile and whatever odd jobs fall his way. You think Ron Mullens is upset by this turn of events? Not on your life.

“I gave it all up for the opportunity to see America as it really is,” he said.

What’s Next?• After a strong lead, you need a strong

nut graph.

What is Nut Graph?

• Basically, it is a summary of what the story is going to be about. It’s the 5 Ws and H that you didn’t answer in the lead.

What’s Next?

• After a strong lead and an informative nut graph…Use the Transition/Quote formula

So how do you end a feature story?

End your story with … • A powerful quote • Tie the ending back to the lead

For a Strong Feature Story remember this …

GQ STUDD

• Great • Quotes• Strong Lead • Transition/Quote Formula • Unique Angle • Description - Show Don't Tell • Detail

On contest day …• Read the entire prompt• Take a moment. Remember what

stands out to you. Try to use that for your lead.

• Reread the prompt and highlight or underline powerful quotes.

• Also, mark your nut graph (usually the news peg) in the prompt.

• Cross out any unnecessary quotes or people.

• Write.

Top 10 Topics to Write About

1. Money2. Physical Fitness3. How-to4. Mental Health5. Lifestyles

Top 10 Topics to Write About

6. Profiles7. Activities8. Self-help9. Amusement10. Education

Are you now ready to take the challenge?